Wall Street

The Wall Street Charging Bull, which is sometimes referred to as the Wall Street Bull or the Bowling Green Bull, is a 3,200 kilograms (7,100 lb) bronze sculpture by Arturo Di Modica that stands in Bowling Green Park near Wall Street in Manhattan, New York City. Standing 11 feet (3.4 m) tall and measuring 16 feet (4.9 m) long, the oversize sculpture depicts a bull, the symbol of aggressive financial optimism and prosperity, leaning back on its haunches and with its head lowered as if ready to charge. The sculpture is both a popular tourist destination which draws thousands of people a day, as well as "one of the most iconic images of New York" and a "Wall Street icon" symbolizing "Wall Street" and the Financial District.
In Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide, Dianne Durante describes the sculpture:
The Bull's head is lowered, its nostrils flare, and its wickedly long, sharp horns are ready to gore; it's an angry, dangerous beast. The muscular body twists to one side, and the tail is curved like a lash: the Bull is also energetic and in motion.
The bronze color and hard, metallic texture of the sculpture's surface emphasises the brute force of the creature. The work was designed and placed so that viewers could walk around it, which also suggests the creature's own movement is unrestricted — a point reinforced by the twisting posture of the bull's body, according to Durante.

Wall Street is actually a street in Lower Manhattan, New York City. It runs east from Broadway to South Street on the East River, through the historical center of the Financial District. It is the first permanent home of the New York Stock Exchange, the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies. Over time, Wall Street became the name of the surrounding geographic neighborhood and also shorthand (or a metonym) for the "influential financial interests" of the American financial industry, which is centered in the New York City area. Anchored by Wall Street, New York City is one of the principal financial centres of the world.

Major U.S. stock and other exchanges remain headquartered on Wall Street and in the Financial District, including the NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX, NYMEX, NYBOT.

Wall Street Buildings, and Wall Street's architecture is generally rooted in the Gilded Age, though there are also some art deco influences in the neighborhood. Landmark buildings on Wall Street include Federal Hall, 14 Wall Street (Bankers Trust Company Building), 40 Wall Street (The Trump Building) the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Broad Street and the US headquarters of Deutsche Bank at 60 Wall Street. The Deutsche Bank building (formerly the J.P Morgan headquarters) is the last remaining major investment bank to still have its headquarters on Wall Street.

Wall Street was historically a commuter destination, it has seen much transportation infrastructure developed with it in mind. Today, Pier 11 at the foot of the street is a busy ferry terminal, and the New York City subway has three stations under Wall Street itself:
* Broad Street (BMT Nassau Street Line) at Wall Street & Broad Street
* Wall Street (IRT Broadway-Seventh Avenue Line) at Wall Street & William Street
* Wall Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line) at Wall Street & Broadway

The name of the Wall Street derives from the 17th century when Wall Street formed the northern boundary of the New Amsterdam settlement. It was constructed to protect against English colonial encroachment. In the 1640s basic picket and plank fences denoted plots and residences in the colony. Later, on behalf of the Dutch West India Company, Peter Stuyvesant, using both African slaves and white colonists, collaborated with the city government in the construction of a stronger stockade. A strengthened 12-foot (4 m) wall against attack from various Native American tribes. In 1685 surveyors laid out Wall Street along the lines of the original stockade. The wall started at Pearl Street, which was the shoreline at that time, crossing the Indian path Broadway and ending at the other shoreline (today's Trinity Place), where it took a turn south and ran along the shore until it ended at the old fort.

In popular culture movies, and films on Wall Street:
* The 1987 film Wall Street and its 2010 sequel exemplify many popular conceptions of Wall Street, being a tale of shady corporate dealings and insider trading.
* The film Die Hard with a Vengeance has a plot involving thieves breaking into the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and stealing most of the gold bullion stored underground by driving dump trucks through a nearby Wall Street subway station.
* Bret Easton Ellis's novel American Psycho follows the day-to-day life of Wall Street investment banker and sometimes serial killer Patrick Bateman.
* In the video game Grand Theft Auto IV in the fictional Liberty City Wall Street is a district dubbed The Exchange.
* Herman Melville's classic short story Bartleby, the Scrivener is subtitled A Story of Wall Street and provides an excellent portrayal of a kind and wealthy lawyer's struggle to reason with that which is unreasonable as he is pushed beyond his comfort zone to "feel" something real for humanity.
* In William Faulkner's novel The Sound and the Fury, Jason Compson hits on other perceptions of Wall Street: after finding some of his stocks are doing poorly, he blames "the Jews."
* Many events of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities center on Wall Street and its culture.
* On January 26, 2000, the band Rage Against The Machine filmed the music video for "Sleep Now in the Fire" on Wall Street, which was directed by Michael Moore. The band at one point stormed the Stock Exchange, causing the doors of the Exchange to be closed early (2:52 P.M.). Trading on the Exchange floor, however, continued uninterrupted.
* "Wallstreet Kingdom" is a controversial fashion brand promoting capitalism and bonuses on Wall Street.
* In the film National Treasure a clue to finding the Templar Treasure leads the main characters to Wall Street's Trinity Church.
* TNA Wrestler Robert Roode is billed from "Wall Street in Manhattan, New York."

Decline and revitalization of Wall Street:
Wall Street itself and the Financial District as a whole are crowded with highrises by any measure. Further, the loss of the World Trade Center has actually spurred development in the Financial District on a scale that hadn't been seen in decades. This is in part due to tax incentives provided by the federal, state and local governments to encourage development. A new World Trade Center complex, centered on Daniel Liebeskind's Memory Foundations plan, is in the early stages of development and one building has already been replaced. The centerpiece to this plan is the 1,776-foot tall 1 World Trade Center (known as the Freedom Tower). New residential buildings are already sprouting up, and buildings that were previously office space are being converted to residential units, also benefiting from the tax incentives. Better access to the Financial District is planned in the form of a new commuter rail station and a new downtown transportation center centered on Fulton Street. If you look at the building on the left, you will see that it is most likely modeled after the Greek Parthenon.
When the World Trade Center was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks, it left somewhat of an architectural void as new developments since the 1970s had played off the complex aesthetically. The attacks, however, contributed to the loss of business on Wall Street, due to temporary-to-permanent relocation to New Jersey and further decentralization with establishments transferred to cities like Chicago, Denver, and Boston.
The Wall Street Manhattan Financial District is one of the largest business districts in the United States, and second in New York City only to Midtown. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the corporate culture of New York was a primary center for the construction of skyscrapers (rivaled only by Chicago). The Financial District, even today, actually makes up a distinct skyline of its own, separate from but not soaring to quite the same heights as its midtown counterpart a few miles to the north.
Built in 1914, 23 Wall Street was known as the "House of Morgan" and for decades the bank's headquarters was the most important address in American finance. At noon, on September 16, 1920, a bomb exploded in front of the bank, killing 38 and injuring 300. Shortly before the bomb went off a warning note was placed in a mailbox at the corner of Cedar Street and Broadway. While theories abound about who was behind the Wall Street bombing and why they did it, after twenty years investigating the matter, the FBI rendered the file inactive in 1940 without ever finding the perpetrators. The explosion did, however, help fuel the Red Scare that was underway at the time.
The stock market crash of 1929 ushered in the Great Depression. During this era, development of the financial district stagnated. Construction of the World Trade Center was one of the few major projects undertaken during the last three quarters of the 20th century and, financially, it was not originally as successful as planned. Some point to the fact that it was actually a government-funded project, constructed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey with the intention of spurring economic development downtown. All the tools necessary for international trade were to be housed in the complex. However, at the beginning, much of the space remained vacant.
Nonetheless, some large and powerful firms did purchase space in the World Trade Center. Further, it attracted other powerful businesses to the immediate neighborhood. In some ways, it could be argued that the World Trade Center changed the nexus of the Financial District from Wall Street to the Trade Center complex.

Some of the first settlers embarked on the ship "Nieu Nederlandt" in 1624 were 30 Walloon families. Wall Street was originally named "de Waal Straat", another explanation is that it could refer to Walloons (one translation for Waal is a Walloon).
In the late 18th century, there was a buttonwood tree at the foot of Wall Street under which traders and speculators would gather to trade informally. In 1792, the traders formalized their association with the Buttonwood Agreement. This was the origin of the New York Stock Exchange.
In 1789, Federal Hall and Wall Street was the scene of the United States' first presidential inauguration. George Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall overlooking Wall Street on April 30, 1789. This was also the location of the passing of the Bill Of Rights.
In 1889, the original stock report, Customers' Afternoon Letter, became The Wall Street Journal. Named in reference to the actual street, it is now an influential international daily business newspaper published in New York City. For many years, it had the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, although it is currently second to USA Today. It has been owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. since 2007.